I'm a young American woman in Milan...and you're not. I go to La Scala a lot...and you don't.

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

July 14, 2013

In interviews with singers, we like to ask (at times, off the record) which conductors they've worked with who rank the most honorably: the maestro who invariably rounds out the top three slots is Riccardo Muti for his scholarship, musicianship and his almost anti-establishment disregard for time card punching while grooming singers and musicians in rehearsals for the stage, which sadly, is an artifact of our parent's generation (modernity should offend our parent's generation, not ours.)

Muti, whether digging up heretofore extinct, Neapolitan School manuscripts or writing books on the elevation of Italian arts and culture in the post-1945 era, uses his influence for humanitarian aims, so last week, the Neapolitan maestro cultivated an audience of 2000 kids and spoke for two hours on Verdi's underwhelming legacy, particularly under Italy's regressive arts funding drought. He asked the audience of university and conservatory students and musicians from all over Italy to reevaluate Verdi and his musical valor and to reassert Verdi's foothold of Italian culture to the country's arts-insouciant aristocracy, gatekeepers of funds.

April 04, 2013

Right around the time you guys were celebrating Jesus' resurrection with bunnies & binges, the NYTimes ran a Dan Wakin piece on Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's rise from the brink of uncertainty, merit to direttore onarario a vita, Riccardo Muti, with quotes from our favorites -- Paolo Isotta for Corriere della Sera and Giovanni Gavazzeni Ricordi for Il Giornale. Resurrected 'em? Damn near killed 'em! With notable upticks in ticket sales, educational outreach, refreshed programming and musicianship, even the usually-blasé Italian press took notice of Muti twerking it hard.

November 29, 2012

The only consistent thing in life is inconsistency -- except when it comes to Muti's Verdi. We can always count on the Neapolitan maestro to power-up Verdi like Pitfall Harry swinging over fire pits & scorpions. The Italian press branded last night's season opener at Teatro dell Opera di Roma a triumph for Muti's "straodinario" "folgorante" & "strepitoso" (extraordinary, brilliant & stunning) baton skillz with a chorus and orchestra "al più alto livello" -- on the highest level -- who high-scored for Verdi's Boccanegra in a new Adrian Nobel production.

November 26, 2012

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is days away from its November 27 new season opener, but judging by the enthusiastic reception of tonight's final dress, everyone should just loosen their Marinella seven-fold silk ties and light a fat 12" Cuban.

Earlier tonight, the Rome opera house rolled out a preview of a new Adrian Noble production of Simon Boccanegra, generously applauded by 1,350 fans who were saluted by Riccardo Muti before picking up his baton. The Italian maestro wished them all "happy listening -- I hope you guys like it" and that if there were boos at the end, it'd only be "an almost-free boo", referencing the free tickets extended by the house.

"Un grande Macbeth ovazione" was part of the Rome-based daily La Repubblica's headline. Ten minutes of applause, mostly for Riccardo Muti and Russian soprano Tatiana Serjan as Lady Macbeth. Serjan also elicited mid-scene applause during her final aria. Rome's audiences made another statement with mid-scene applause after the chorus' "Patria oppressa" at the beginning of the fourth act. Muti and Serjan had also collaborated with Stein during the August Salzburg edition.

All the VIPs were in the house last night, including the Rome mayor (Gianni Alemanno), the president of the republic (Giorgio Napolitano), and the new culture minister (Lorenzo Ornaghi).

An intrepid youtuber uploaded a clip of Serjan singing Lady Macbeth's final aria.

May 16, 2010

Next Tuesday's premiere of "Madama Butterfly" at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma has been cancelled due to one of the strikes that are shutting down most Italian opera houses. On Wednesday, hopefully, the Stefano Vizioli production, conducted by Daniel Oren with Amarilli Nizza as Cio-Cio-San, will go on stage as planned.

April 02, 2010

Images from Puccini's Tosca that opened last night at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Svetla Vassileva is Tosca, Marcello Giordani is Cavaradossi, and Juan Pons is Scarpia in the late Mauro Bolognini's classic production. Photos: Falsini.

January 25, 2010

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, was his last opera for a good reason: old dude was in his 80s when he wrote it and he died less than a decade after its premiere (in his regal suite at Grand Hotel Et De Milan).

So it's actually quite fitting that Opera di Roma launched (this past Friday) their 2010 season opener with a Falstaff manned by men in their twilights. The opera house resurrected Franco Zeffirelli's (he's 87-years-old) classic & beloved production, which had already been used nine times since it premiered in 1956.

On the podium, Israeli conductor Ascher Fisch needs to keep track of his star Sir Johns for the run. The lead is being split between four singers: Renato Bruson (at 76-years-old), Ruggero Raimondi (at 69-years-old), Juan Pons (at 64-years-old), and the youngest, Alberto Mastromarino (who ironically doesn't divulge his age).

September 26, 2009

After a 25-year shut-out, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is preparing for their opening night (October 2) of Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Gianluigi Gelmetti is saddled with the baton and will lead the Teatro dell'Opera's orchestra, who hasn't wrapped their bows or lips around the five-act score since the 1983/84 season. The new production, by Pierre Audi, is in co-production with the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, which they premiered in Brussels last year looking like a post-apocalyptic Dan Flavin retrospective.

Monica Bacelli will make mincemeat of the role, singing Mélisande (rotating with Nathalie Manfrino), Canadian baritone Jean-François Lapointe sings Pelléas, French bass-baritone Laurent Naouri sings Arkël, and French baritone Jean-Philippe Lafont splits Golaud with Kurt Rydl, the Austrian singer with the self-appointed sobriquet "Der MEGA BASS". Listen, he can call himself the ~The Viennese Juggernaut~ for all we care...the man has sung with with Sinopoli & Sawallisch in Rome, Giulini in Siena, Muti at Scala, and Celibidache in Munich -- and if that's not full of enough win, the Bass rents out his Vienna residences and leaves half-eaten Tafelspitz sandwiches in the fridge for you.

June 13, 2009

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno's plan -- to get rid of Opera di Roma GM Francesco Ernani, replace him with someone else and wheel in Riccardo Muti as Music Director -- seems to have blown up -- yesterday the Roman opera house named as provisional GM, with a mandate that expires on July 3 but that could be extended, as it seems likely, until October, human resources administrator Catello De Martino.

Riccardo Muti, who seemed very likely to accept an official post -- his favorite would have been, as anticipated by Opera Chic, the post of "Principal Conductor", Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno was pushing for "Music Director" -- will now obviously stay away from any commitment until the dust is settled.

May 21, 2009

Last night at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma the heavy-hitters (?) of Rome's social set trussed up their sagging bits, aired-out their wardrobes, injected some fillers, and headed for the theater to fete Franco Zeffirelli's production of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. To Rome's distinctive crowds, Maestro Gianluigi Gelmetti was on the podium, Myrtò Papatanasiu sang as Nedda, and Stuart Neill as Canio.

Dagospia was there (photos by the awesome Umberto Pizzi, Italian heir to Diane Arbus), and caught the madness. In addition to Frengo, Nicoletta Mantovani made an appearnce, as did Carla Fracci and her director/choreographer hubby Beppe Menegatti.

Chiarot's name -- over which Rome's Mayor, Regione Lazio and Provincia di Roma governing bodies have found an agreement -- should be officially announced as new GM tomorrow.

Stay tuned then for the possible announcement of Riccardo Muti as the new Principal Guest Conductor of Opera di Roma with two or three operas to be conducted by him in Rome every season (he will almost certainly not accept the title of Music Director, though).

Obviously, Riccardo Muti's name had been floated as the one of the possible new Music Director, but the maestro had indicated he'd rather wait until the administrative situation had been sorted out more clearly; this latest move makes his nomination as Music Director -- or even as Principal Conductor, Muti's preferred option -- less likely, at least for the time being.

April 01, 2009

The meeting earlier today in Rome of Opera di Roma's board of directors was expected to come to a decision re: the replacement of outgoing General Manager Francesco Ernani and the appointment of a new Music Director; but instead of running with the ball the board chose to punt. There will be a new meeting next week between members of city government of Rome, of the regional government of Lazio -- like the governor's office in the US -- and the central government to try and find emergency funding for the cash-strapped institution.

Rome Mayor Alemanno had started an audit of Opera di Roma's finances that threatened to drive the company into a disastrous receivership; the audit has been called off, as reported last week by Opera Chic, and Opera di Roma has already approved a series of cuts that should make the projected deficit for 2009 operations less heavy to bear. But about euro 5.5 million are still needed for the 2009 budget; next week's meeting should determine whether or not local governments and the central government will shell out the 5.5 million.

No news, therefore, on the possible replacement of outgoing GM Ernani with current Teatro Lirico di Cagliari GM Maurizio Pietrantonio, who is Mayor Alemanno's choice and favorite candidate.

Only once a new GM is named, Riccardo Muti, who has been offered the Music Directorship but seems more keen on accepting a less complicated post of Principal Conductor, would make his decision public.

March 26, 2009

Riccardo Muti finally spoke today to the Italian media at the press conference for the 2009 Ravenna Festival. The AGI wire service reports that the Italian maestro, regarding the chances of his accepting the Music Director post at Opera di Roma, said:

"If I choose a theater, it's a commitment... I am grateful... I am considering the offer with enthusiasm... I've been doing this job for 40 years and I've always considered every offer at length... It happened with la Scala, with Maggio Musicale
Fiorentino, Philadelphia and Chicago, because those are life-changing choices".

As Opera Chic already reported when the news of the Rome offer broke, there is talk of Muti preferring the less stressful title of Principal Conductor over that of Music Director (that's instead Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno's favorite option).

Of course Muti's words might siomply indicate his desire to run out the clock until the March 31 meeting of Opera di Roma's board of directors that, as Opera Chic reported yesterday, will discuss the replacement of outgoing GM Ernani (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari GM Maurizio
Pietrantonio has been indicated by Rome Mayor Alemanno as the
likely successor).

March 25, 2009

Opera di Roma's board of directors will meet on Tuesday, March 31: the board will discuss the replacement of outgoing General Manager, Francesco Ernani. Current Teatro Lirico di Cagliari General Manager Maurizio Pietrantonio has been indicated by Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno as the likely successor of Dr. Ernani.

Once the choice of a new GM is made, Opera di Roma could then proceed to the appointment of the new Music Director; the post has already been offered to Riccardo Muti -- who, Opera Chic reported two weeks ago, would appear instead to be more likely to accept the post under a different title, such as that of Principal Conductor (he will take over the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as Music Director in Sept. 2010).

March 24, 2009

Earlier tonight in Rome, Opera Chic can report, the unions at Opera di Roma have decided to revoke the strikes that threatened to cancel the next four shows of Gluck's Iphigénie En Aulide conducted by Riccardo Muti. The strikes had been called as a reaction to the government's decision to start an audit that could -- in less than two weeks -- drive the Roman opera house into receivership.

The unions have learned today that the audit will be called off, leaving the opera company free of the fear of being driven into receivership (with mandatory cuts in budget and workforce), and, for now, still under control of the outgoing General Manager, Francesco Ernani. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno indicated last month his desire to replace Mr. Ernani with a manager of his own choosing (Alemanno later indicated current Teatro Lirico di Cagliari GM Maurizio Pietrantonio as a candidate of his liking).

Last week Riccardo Muti has been asked by Mayor Alemanno to take over the company as Music Director; the Italian maestro, who left la Scala in 2005 after a 19-year reign as MD, has asked for time to consider the offer (Opera Chic anticipated that his favorite option would be a less demanding title such as "Principal Conductor" instead of "Music Director" (Muti will take the helm of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2010).

March 20, 2009

In the Byzantine halls of Italian politics there's nothing remotely close to a straight line from point A to B but the road that seems to have led to Riccardo Muti's appointment -- he'll have to choose the title in the end, Music Director (Mayor Alemanno's -- and not only his -- favorite option) or Principal Conductor (Muti's fave, it is said) -- at Opera di Roma has been remarkably straightforward.

At least for Italian standards. And if one has the patience to go back in time a little.

In the fall of 2006, it was determined that Riccardo Muti -- who back then, a year and a half after being ousted as Scala Music Director, was the world's most sought after freelance conductor -- would add to his commitments an occasional presence at Opera di Roma. But Muti's commitments back then -- with the exception of his student orchestra, the Luigi Cherubini -- were on a freelance basis -- his habitual gigs with the Wiener Philharmoniker, a bit of Paris here, a NY Phil guest spot there. Some Salzburg (he has a nice house there) in the Summer. Mozart's birthday party. Maggio Musicale, his old home, his first important post as a young man. Verdi's Requiem in Westminster cathedral with Philharmonia, etc.

High profile gigs, but it was all as baton-for-hire; a new life -- at 65 -- for the man who had taken over Maggio Musicale at 28, Philarmonia at 31 as Klemperer's successor, Philadelphia at 38 as Ormandy's successor. Then la Scala, at 45: Music Director after Serafin, Toscanini, De Sabata, Cantelli, Giulini, Abbado.

Not precisely the resume -- nor the psychological profile -- of someone who would retire at 65 and spend time with the grandkids, conduct the occasional gig. Especially when you consider that Muti, beyond meticulous about music, his true obsession, is a man with very, very few hobbies -- if any. Famously clueless about technology (he mistakenly thought the iPod had to do with horses -- "hyppo"-something), uninterested in exotic cuisine (rely on him to tell you which Italian restaurants around the world offer good Italian cooking -- that's his thing, and he's a simple eater, some pasta and some fish, not particularly a gourmet), not into fast cars. His villa in Pantelleria is obviously expensive and very nice, but it's no monster mansion like, for example, Maazel's Virginia home. He does like soccer, good Italian as he is -- but besides the occasional Napoli (and Juventus) games, whenever he can, he's not that much into that either. This is a guy who, for fun, would pore over Cimarosa's manuscript for a forgotten opera buffa; or commission, in his Scala times of absolute power, the first edition of Salieri's L'Europa Riconosciuta in two centuries, digging up some Salieri ballets to replace the ones lost for his score (and then proceed to drill his vision of the lead character into poor Diana Damrau over months of rehearsals -- Diana seemed to like the obsessiveness, it is said -- another born perfectionist, she likes her conductors to be particular about stuff). Invent some weird Mozart/De Falla/Scriabin concert program for the Wiener Philharmoniker -- that's what rocks Muti's boat. Early retirement at what for a conductor is early middle age? No, grazie.

Anyway, Muti's comeback progressed with what amounted -- back in 2006 and 2007 -- to be significant baby steps (it's all relative, OK): his stewardship of the revived Whitsun Festival in Salzburg (where he has been bringing back to life lost scores of the great half-forgotten Settecento Southern Italians like Paisiello and Jommelli); the (short-lived, as it turned out) spot as Guest Conductor of a then-Alan Gilbert-less NY Phil. The big turning point came last year -- 2008 is key to the understanding of what is going on now in Muti's career. When, last May 5, he accepted the Music Director post at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, it was clear that whatever disappointment -- sadness, whatever you want to call it, it did happen and it was bad -- had struck the once-fierce conductor after his de facto firing by la Scala's orchestra -- had ended.

What had begun back in 2006 as some sort of guest spot for a celebrity conductor in celebrity-thirsty Opera di Roma -- an opera here, a concert there, grazie maestro -- shifted gears when Muti, last summer , chose -- and obtained from management at Opera di Roma -- to bring his Salzburg Otello to Roma and to open on December 6, one day before la Scala's traditional prima of December 7. Pitting his (already tried out in Salzburg that August) Otello against la Scala's Don Carlo conducted by Daniele Gatti, the (as yet unofficial) future Music Director of the Milanese theater, Muti's likely successor at the helm (cue the fiasco of that Don Carlo -- tenor Giuseppe Filianoti fired 24 hours before opening night and replaced with an unknown, impressively stout American who has remained, since then, still pretty unknown, the boos that buried -- unfairly, in Opera Chic's view -- Gatti and the director, Stephane Braunschweig, who dreamed up a strikingly anodyne, flashback-heavy, all-white, anemic staging for Verdi's dark tale).

Less than three weeks after the Otello-Don Carlo duel, conductor Ennio Morricone was replaced as a member of the board of Opera di Roma by the most powerful political journalist in Italy, RAI TV's Bruno Vespa -- more powerful than the late Tim Russert used to be, to give our American readers an idea of that kind of weight he pulls on a daily basis in his political talk-show.

Vespa (married to a very powerful top executive of the Justice Department in Rome) has been for years, famously, a Muti fan -- and was the journalist to whom Muti gave his first major post-Scala interview back in 2005.

Rome's political climate had changed -- after many years of center-left government under two different mayoral administrations, political winds in the country had changed so much that Berlusconi's win in a national landslide also created the climate for a change of city government in Rome (Milan, in the North, being a center-right stronghold safely since the mid-1990s in a as-yet uninterrupted string of victories in the elections for mayor).

The gentlemanly. well-liked Francesco Ernani's position as General Manager of Opera di Roma appeared immediately on shakier ground after Gianni Alemanno's win; in February 2009 Alemanno indicated his wish to replace Ernani early (against the unions wishes), whose mandate would expire naturally in early 2010. Among Alemanno's reasons for a quick change in leadership at the opera house, the allegedly bad -- worse than thought by most -- financial situation of the company, especially vis-a-vis Berlusconi's government cuts to the 2009 budget for the arts, in large part swallowed by the chronically cash-hungry, in-debt opera houses around the country.

From then on things happen quick.

Unofficial conversations with Muti (who's in Rome rehearsing Gluck's Iphigénie En Aulide, with Wagner's ending -- in French, pure Muti) increase from then on; would he accept a post as Music Director? Among those meetings, a big, not-so-secret dinner at Vespa's home in downtown Rome with Muti, Alemanno, Prime Minister Berlusconi himself and various political heavies (a Cardinal among them, this is Rome after all). It is highly unlikely soccer was discussed at depth, at that dinner, despite Muti's interest in the sport and Berlusconi's ownership of AC Milan team. Religion? Muti is non-practising, Berlusconi a divorced ladies man. Music? Berlusconi, not an opera fan, skipped Muti's premiere of Gluck for a comedy show at a nearby theater the other night (Alemanno and the President of the Italian Republic were at the opera instead).

One suspects the issue of Opera di Roma's future administration, artistic and otherwise, was indeed touched at that dinner.

The stubborn reality is that Muti -- Rome needs him more than he needs them, even if the post would be sweet revenge against la Scala -- would not say yes outright, not as long as the situation at the Opera remained unclear -- who would be the new General manager, after Ernani? What about the cuts? Muti also appears to be wary of the actual "Music Director" title -- still sore from Scala's ju-jitsu fights with unions and the then-General Manager. And anyway, he shouldn't personally conduct more than four operas each season anyway -- the Chicago job is not in question, and it'll kick into gear in 2010. Then there's Cherubini. And two more Whitsun Festivals in Salzburg. So there's talk of Muti accepting a "Principal Conductor" title -- but with plenty of de facto power, unlike, for example, Daniel Barenboim's vastly ceremonial title of "Maestro Scaligero" at la Scala, where Barenboim brings a few high-profile gigs a year over from Berlin and for the rest it's GM Stephane Lissner, all-powerful, who calls all the shots.

Alemanno -- a man not necessarily known for his subtle approach to governance, nor someone prone to making concessions out of the blue (he still wears proudly around his neck a Celtic cross that he considers, he says, a religious symbol, while it remains for many Italians a neo-Fascist icon) -- might have overplayed his hand in the Ernani removal -- to forcefully state the case of Opera di Roma's alleged financial grave troubles, a 15-days official inquiry has begun that could actually drive, at the end of what amounts to an audit, the company into receivership.

Many sources seem to indicate that there is no actual legal basis to throw the company into a possibly catastrophic receivership -- Muti wouldn't touch a company in such dire straits. But this has indeed weakened Ernani's position even further. If, in two weeks, the audit finds no grounds for the receivership (Alemanno himself said the receivership is far from inevitable), and a new GM is already en route to Rome (earlier today Alemanno indicated current Teatro Lirico di Cagliari GM Maurizio Pietrantonio as a candidate -- the unions don't seem too much against the nomination, at first sight), Muti will take the job.

The four strikes that have just been announced and would sink Muti's Iphigénie?

A reasonable response by the unions to Alemanno's battering ram -- the audit, the threat of receivership. It's a bargaining chip -- Muti as Music Director means visibility and fresh money from sponsors and otherwise -- Alemanno's benevolence will be a sure thing, he has spoken already of "reviving" the company -- once people of his liking run it of course. The smart money says the strikes -- at least two, or even all of them -- would be revoked. At least if Pietrantonio sails in, and Muti finally says yes.

FIALS and Libersind unions at Opera di Roma have just opted to go on strike, putting four nights of Gluck's Iphigénie En Aulide conducted by Riccardo Muti at serious risk if the strike isn't called off.

The move follows Mayor Gianni Alemanno's decision to begin the procedure that could place, two weeks from now, the opera house into receivership.

***update***

The two unions gather 240 of 631 workers of the opera house, and they have announced a strike that will hit Iphigenie en Aulide on March 24, 26, 28 and 29; and Il re nudo @ Teatro Nazionale on March 25, 27, 29 and 31.

March 18, 2009

Rome Mayor Alemanno has asked Riccardo Muti -- who last night conducted the premiere of Iphigénie En Aulide at Opera di Roma -- to accept the Music Director post at Opera di Roma; Muti said to have asked for time to mull over the offer; Opera di Roma at the present time is between General Managers and risks to go into receivership.

March 17, 2009

As we write Riccardo Muti is conducting @ Opera di Roma the premiere of Iphigénie en Aulide -- part of his recently-hatched plan to create a special relationship with the Roman house: after conducting there Verdi's Otello this past December, after this Gluck he'll conduct Idomeneo next year and Nabucco in 2011.